Of Broken has it together

Sometimes doing what's best for the band means saying goodbye to your record label, explained Jason Peltzer, frontman for rock band Of Broken.

After nearly two years of making music with Rapture Records, a small indie label, Of Broken decided to leave. The Baltimore-area band has been unattached since May.

"We don't really care what people think, good or bad," said Peltzer, 27, in a recent phone interview. "If we can do it on our own, let's do it."

Of Broken will headline the Hagerstown Suns Annual Chili Cook-off & Music Festival on Saturday and will perform at Duffy's on Potomac later that night. They'll be joined by No Tell Motel and singer-songwriter Josh Morningstar.

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The band has two full-length albums, the most recent is "The Panic," released under Rapture Records earlier this year.

Of Broken formed eight years ago as a semi-serious college band, said Peltzer, the only member of the group's original lineup. The band started with bunch of friends who were living together in the same house.

"I think that sort of aided the end of it," Peltzer said.

The current four-man lineup has been around for three years and it's much more serious, Peltzer said. The band's first music video, "The Panic," was filmed by Justin Beckenheimer, an up-and-comer from Towson, Md., who was named a top five finalist in an MTV student film contest this spring. The band is about to start on another video for their song "Breathe," with Beckenheimer's production company Stratatek Studios.

As for being unattached, Peltzer says given the DIY nature of the music biz, the band isn't losing any sleep. They've got new material and are ready to record, signed or otherwise.

Q&A with Jason Peltzer of Of Broken

It was a lot of sitting around if you're not part of the crew. The shoot itself took nine hours. Each person could have actually been filmed for 45 minutes. I couldn't imagine being a movie star.

What's the concept of the next video?

The concept is based on a couple you can see is fighting. I don't want to give too much away. It's a metaphor for saying something you wish you could take back.

How are you guys handling the casting?

For this video, we're doing an open-casting call. At first, you're nervous. You think you'll get one or two girls (auditioning). We're up to 30. It's pretty exciting.

So, what are your fans like? Do you guys get some crazy female fans?

Yeah. I think every band has that crazy, obsessed girl, but then you have the sweet ones, who say we saved their lives with a song and they promote your band like crazy - we like those. But we do have a lot of guy fans. I was actually surprised because one of the songs I wrote, "Sometime Blind," was aimed at girls, but I had a lot of guys write me saying they could relate to it.

So you guys have some new stuff. Any plans to record, record deal or otherwise?

We've talked about doing a couple of songs. We're hoping our current album can get us more attention.